About “If We Were Vampires”

The song is about the wish to be able to be together forever, contrasted against the reality that one day one of them will die and the other will be alone. Unlike other songs that conclude that living forever would be the ultimate expression of love, Isbell concludes that it is the limited time they spend together that gives their relationship meaning.

With Isbell’s wife, Amanda Shires, singing harmony on the song, the muse for this one is pretty clear.

The really interesting thing about this song in a literary sense is the inversion of the classic trope of vampires. Usually in literature vampires (literal or metaphorical) are evil, parasitic, and preying on the innocent. However, Isbell focuses instead on the immortality of vampires and the implications of an eternal love.

What has the producer said about the song?

I was like, ‘Dude, please tell me you haven’t been watching Twilight.‘ Then I heard it and I was like, 'Who even thinks like that?’ He’s taken something that seems like it’s going one way and just flipped it completely.

What have the artists said about the song?

He talked about the process of writing this song in an interview with Paste Magazine:

I started to examine my own notions about mortality, when I realized that to write a love song, you have to write a death song. Love doesn’t mean as much without death. If I agree to marry someone, that’s a big risk, because I only have one life. If I lived forever, what would it matter? But because I’m only going to live till 85 or thereabouts, I’m giving her the most valuable thing I have: my time.